Research to show how cities promote better health

In this year’s major funding round, Riksbankens Jubileumsfond is awarding grants worth just over SEK 370 million in all to a total of 77 projects. The four largest research projects will share a total of SEK 165 million and one of them is Erik Grönqvist’s project Do cities create or attract individuals with good health? Causality and selection in urban health.

The project takes a broad approach to factors underlying health, as health has been found to be unevenly distributed across the geographical landscape.

“People in cities generally enjoy better health than people in rural areas, and in cities as well there are large health differences between neighbourhoods. The fundamental question in our research is whether different geographical environments create or attract healthy individuals,” Grönqvist explains.

“We are going to investigate how specific characteristics of urban and rural environments affect people’s health. The research will provide new insights into the causes of geographical inequalities in health by analysing extensive Swedish register data with information on health outcomes, behaviours, housing and neighbourhood characteristics.”

Extensive observational data

The research uses extensive observational data and detailed geographical information combined with natural experiments to identify causal relationships between individual and environmental factors and health. For example, the researchers are investigating whether certain urban characteristics, such as access to parks and public transport, directly improve the health of residents or whether healthier people choose to live there.

The project is interdisciplinary and based on cooperation between researchers from different faculties. It is a collaboration between the Department of Medical Sciences, the Department of Economics, the Institute of Housing and Urban Research, the Department of Human Geography and the Department of Public Health and Care Sciences at Uppsala University.

Why is this research important?

“The fact that individuals in cities are healthier and that there are substantial differences in health within cities is not just true of Sweden but is a global phenomenon, and it is important to understand what in the local environment creates or attracts good health. Our research is important because it will provide insights into how investments in urban infrastructure can promote health and reduce urban-rural inequalities,” says Grönqvist.

Annica Hulth